Nearly Everybody in Digital Advertising is Calling Pinterest For a Job

There’s one person nearly every digital sales executive with a half decent rolodex wants to work for: Joanne Bradford, head of partnerships at Pinterest.

That’s because the hugely popular social networking site is close to launching its ad business–in fact, the roll out is planned for second quarter. These sales candidates see a potential windfall, since there is a ton of pent up demand among brands looking to attach themselves to the Pinterest phenomenon. Then there’s the tantalizing prospect that getting hired might include some pre-IPO shares in the Silicon Valley start up as part of one’s compensation–investors have put a Pinterest’s valuation at $3.8 billion.

Ms Bradford, who has held top digital sales jobs at Microsoft, Yahoo and Demand Media, is said by numerous buyers and rival execs, to be furiously interviewing sales candidates, including for a coveted head of partnerships position in New York as well as a similar position in San Francisco, even as Pinterest is only just signing on its first paying advertisers.

Unlike say Tumblr, or even Facebook in its early days, ads aren’t seen as crashing the party on Pinterest. Instead, potential sales candidates see a rare opportunity – a fast growing social media venue that is practically tailor made for advertising, particularly commerce. Pinterest is essentially a digital scrapbook where people post images from around the Web of things they like, or in many cases, things they want. It turns out the most popular Pinterest image categories include apparel, home goods, food, and travel destinations–all very advertising friendly categories.

If there’s any complaint among agencies at the moment, is that it’s sometimes tough to reach Pinterest.

“I’ve never seen anything like it,” said one digital agency exec. “Every single sales guy is calling me, ‘can you hook me up at Pinterest?”

Even if they may have trouble reaching Ms. Bradford and her team at the moment, brands are clamoring to jump on the Pinterest wave, say ad executives. Besides Pinterest’s brand and ecommerce power, its audience in 75% mobile.

Sure, mobile advertising is growing rapidly; but more importantly, many believe that mobile will become the primary way people access the Web down the road. Thus, it’s where many sales executive want to steer their careers.

“If you think mobile is the future, we need an alternative to display in mobile, and Pinterest is in a great spot,” said Ian Schafer, CEO, Deep Focus.

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